Reading Comprehension Tips

ShanShan

I am absolutely terrible at RC. I can't finish all 4 passages and even without finishing all 4, I still get quite a lot of questions incorrect. Any RC tips? I'd appreciate any tips. I tried notations but I found that it slowed me down because I was spending too much time trying to figure out what was important enough to circle or put into brackets.

Rigid Designator

Try some drills where you read purely for structure, perspective, and attitude. Take in what fine-details you can, but try and nail the passage's organisation and a simple understanding of the different opinions within it (as simple as "this person disagrees with this other person", or "this person likes this other person"). In a way you can't help but take in the passage's details when you read for structure, but if you read for details you might sometimes miss out on the big-picture structure. You might find you score better with just this different approach (I know I did personally).

samantha.ashley92

One thing that I've found to be helpful is to put a mark next to anything that indicates the author's POV. Questions related to that are almost guaranteed. Also, remember that you're not reading for the purpose of a complete understanding. What I mean by that is that you don't need to remember every detail. You can always go back to the passage.

turnercm

Recently I read that reading the passages twice before answering the questions greatly decreases incorrect answers. Maybe consider marking the conclusions only or doing less marking. I find that the less I mark, the less confused I get by my markings

samantha.ashley92

Ok so I just got the LSAT Trainer book. Something about the phrasing of a few key concepts just really got some things to click. After 8ish hours of reading/practicing with the entire RC section, along with 5 RC problem sets, I went from -12 on an RC PT to -5. It's not because I got better per se, just that I needed to pull out some key concepts that I missed in the CC. For example, I really didn't know how important it was to read the question stems thoroughly. I know that sounds crazy, but it made a huge difference for me. So I learned in the CC that "the passage states" means that the answer is explicitly stated in the passage. What I didn't pick up on, until I read LSAT Trainer, is that "the author infers" questions may throw in an explicitly stated (wrong) AC to trip you up. I would read through the ACs and think, "I remember reading that!" and just pick it. In hindsight, I feel like I really should have remembered that everything on the LSAT is super literal. But obviously, other people make the mistake I made. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep throwing those trap ACs in there!

Another thing that I learned (only to practice with) is to read the passage twice. The first time, only mark up main points and the author's opinion. The second time, mark the details. That helped me realize how much I was overdoing the underlining, circling, etc. I would think that everything was so important, and I'd want to remember it all. But after reading the passage, I realized that half of what I thought was important was not important at all. I started limiting my underlining/whatever, recognizing that most important concepts would be discussed more than whatever was written in that sentence. Certain concepts (usually in science passages) are mentioned a sentence or two before they are explained. Just wait for the explanation, and the things you just read will start to make sense.

Building off of that, remember that you are not reading the passages for a thorough understanding; you are reading it for a basic understanding. (I know I mentioned this earlier.) A passage is kind of like a chapter in a textbook for your least favorite class. You scan through it, remember the main points in case it's brought up in class, and come back to the text if necessary. (It doesn't disappear!) Operating under the assumption that you're not aiming for -0 atm, if you miss a question because you didn't pick up on a detail, that's fine. Don't spend two minutes looking for the answer. Keep rolling with the punches, and you won't have to speed-read that last passage.

ShanShan

Wow! You are amazing. I've been using the memory method which has helped with accuracy but my timing is off so I'm trying to go faster without messing up too much. I'll take all this into consideration